Clearing out the Freezer!

As 2010 comes to a close, I think its time to, as everyone else is, look back on the year and discuss if it has been a triumph for cinemas and movie-goers or if this years variety can be put in the recycle bin!

I would like to take the time to look at the good and the bad movies of the year, unfortunately there was an absurd amount of the latter! So this post may seem slightly negative towards this years releases but believe me it is not on purpose!! Good or bad though this year in movies will probably be known for one thing... 3D! Almost every release had a 3D alternative which got old very quickly, but that dit not stop them making them and converting them!

I'll start on a positive note, we did see two fantastic animated films this year in Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me. These two "kids" movies were above and beyond what I had expected and are guarenteed to be in my DVD collection soon. Unfortunately not all the animated films this year were that good, Shrek 4, Alpha and Omega and Legend of the Guardians all disappointed and I am sure this will be reflected when these are put straight in the DVD bargin bin!!

Another big genre reboot this year saw the return of the minimal thinking, big explosion, one-liner action films from the 80's and early 90's. I have always loved this type of film, pure entertainment, who cares about Oscars when you can have a good time watching shit blow up!
The Expendables, The A-Team, The Losers, Red, Unstoppable, The Crazies and even From Paris with Love, all provided that bit of excitement that casual cinema folk and movie-buffs alike want to see. Give them enough time and these will be as classic as Die Hard, Rambo and Commando!

If you are not into all guns-a-blazin' action films there were more "Rom-Coms" and "Chick-Flicks" out than you could shake a pink stick at! Even at that though, they were not great by any means and will/should be soon forgotten. If you were duped into seeing these I feel sorry for you but I at least you didn't see all of them! Remember Me, Leap Year, Dear John, Valentine's Day, The Bounty Hunter, Date Night, The Back-up Plan, Letters to Juliet, Sex and the City 2...... the list goes on and on! Expect the DVD's to be given away for free with newspapers, magazines and packets of Tayto shortly after release!

We still got the big budget blockbusters this year with Iron Man 2 and Inception spending a long time on the big screen, others like Skyline and Salt came and went without much notice.
Comedies were also hit and miss, with Due Date and The Other Guys being brilliant and Hot Tub Time Machine and Grown Ups being terrible.

I have left out loads of films from the above, good and bad, but this is starting to become a bit of an essay and I don't want it to go on for ever!
I'll leave you with my Top 10 and Worst 10 of the year in no particular order below.
All in all it has been a good year for movies but it does almost seem like two bad films for every 1 good one! Here's hoping 2011 will be better :)

Top 10.

Kick-ass
Buried
The Expendables
Despicable Me
Due Date
Inception
Toy Story 3
The Losers
Iron Man 2
Cop Out

Worst 10

Legion
Leap Year
Extraordinary Measures
Shrek 4
Alice in Wonderland
Death at a Funeral
Furry Vengeance
Marmaduke
Eat Pray Love
The Switch

I would like to hear what you think though, what were your best and worst films of the year and are they similar to mine? Comments and emails always welcome and just in case I don't post again this year... Happy New Year!!

I know you cannot remember all of the films from 2010, so here is a list of the 100 most popular movies of the year, for both good and bad reasons!

2010 Movies:
Daybreakers
Leap Year
The Book of Eli
Extraordinary Measures
Legion
Tooth Fairy
Edge of Darkness
From Paris With Love
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Valentine's Day
The Wolfman
Shutter Island
Cop Out
The Crazies
Alice in Wonderland
Brooklyn's Finest
Green Zone
Remember Me
The Bounty Hunter
Repo Men
Hot Tub Time Machine
How to Train Your Dragon
Clash of the Titans
Date Night
Death at a Funeral
Kick-Ass
The Back-up Plan
The Losers
Furry Vengeance
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Harry Brown
Iron Man 2
Letters to Juliet
Robin Hood
Looking for Eric
MacGruber
Shrek Forever After
Sex and the City 2
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Survival of the Dead
Get Him to the Greek
Killers
Marmaduke
Splice
Ondine
The A-Team
The Karate Kid
Jonah Hex
Toy Story 3
Cyrus
Knight and Day
Grown Ups
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Last Airbender
Despicable Me
Predators
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Salt
Charlie St. Cloud
Dinner for Schmucks
The Other Guys
Eat Pray Love
The Expendables
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Vampires Suck
Piranha 3D
The Switch
The Last Exorcism
Takers
The American
Going the Distance
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Alpha and Omega
Devil
Easy A
The Town
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
You Again
Buried
Case 39
Let Me In
The Social Network
Life as We Know It
Secretariat
Jackass 3D
Red
Paranormal Activity 2
Saw 3D
Due Date
Megamind
Skyline
Unstoppable
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
The Next Three Days
Burlesque
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Tourist
Tron: Legacy

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Deaths this year

With very few Movies of any interest being released this month, it has been a quiet time for me. I have been re-watching some classics and hope to bring forward the forgotten films of the past few years into the lime-light once again.

But in the abrupt halt to my Cinema trips I have had a chance to look back over the year and I noticed that, this year more than most, we have lost a great number of stars of the big screen.


With the recent untimely death of the legend Leslie Nielsen I thought I might take this opportunity to remember some of the Heroes and Heroines that we have lost in 2010.

From the start of the year we have lost;

• Zelda Rubinstein (1933-2010) known for; the Poltergeist Movies
• Corey Haim (1971-2010) known for; The Lost Boys
  
• Peter Graves (1926-2010) known for; Airplane, Mission Impossible (TV)
• John Forsythe (1918-2010) known for; Charlie's Angels, Dynasty (TV)
• Gary Coleman (1968-2010) known for; Diff'rent Strokes (TV)
• Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) known for; Easy Rider, Speed, Waterworld
  
• Harold Gould (1923-2010) known for; The Sting
  
• Gloria Stuart (1910-2010) known for; Titanic
• Tony Curtis (1925-2010) known for; Some Like it Hot, Sparticus
• Tom Bosley (1927-2010) known for; Happy Days (TV)
• Leslie Nielsen (1926-2010) known for; Airplane, The Naked Gun Movies
  

Not all of these actors may have been the most well known over the last 20 years but they have all put in decades of hard work to build the movie industry into what it is today, and for that they will be missed.

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Due Date (2010)

Director: Todd Philips

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Zach Galifianakis, Jamie Foxx, Danny McBride, Michelle Monaghan, Juliette Lewis

Date: November 2010

Plot: After an incident with Ethan (Galifianakis) and being put on a no-fly list, Peter (Downey Jr) must find a way to get cross country in time to see the birth of his first child. Peter has no choice but to team up with Ethan and this begins their hilarious, eventful, odd-couple style journey from New York to LA.

Due Date - Trailer

Review: This review is simply for the 4 people in the world who have yet to see this film because if you haven't seen it yet, there is something wrong!!

This is a classic odd-couple style film with the uptight expecting father Peter, played by Robert Downey Jr teaming up with the free spirited, aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay, played fantastically by Zach Galifianakis.

After an incident on the plane home, Peter is removed and put on a no-fly list, he is forced to hitch a ride across the country with Ethan to try and make it for the birth of his first born.
Ethan, an aspiring actor, accompanied by his Dog Sonny and his fathers ashes in a coffee can is looking to go to Hollywood to start his career as a TV actor.

The journey to LA is full of excitement, humour, tragedy, car crashes, weed and some of the best comic scenes of the year, especially the Downey Jr Babysitting scene and the Zach, a jeep and a drainage ditch scene... I'm still laughing!

I really enjoyed this movie, to the extent that I would easily go see it again! It will undoubtedly be compared to the classic comedies of this generation, The Hangover and Superbad, but the comparisons are valid, this will be a classic!

I felt the film peaked early and kept the high throughout most of the film, it is only at one or two points where the story gets serious and the comedy slows down but these scenes only last a moment and are broken up by some big laughs.

Overall I would highly recommend this to everyone for a good laugh whether its in the afternoon on a Tuesday or on a Friday night, it is always funny!

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Saw 3D (2010)

Director: Kevin Greutert

Cast: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Sean Patrick Flannery, Chad Donella, Gina Holden, Cary Elwes

Date: October 2010

Plot: In this next Saw chapter we see a group of Jigsaw survivors gather together to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror.



Saw 3D - Trailer

Review: I feel enough time has passed and I have calmed down just about enough to write the review for this, the latest installment of the Saw franchise. As you can probably tell, I was not impressed with Saw 3D but where do I begin...

It all started about this time last year, we were promised retribution for the terrible terrible Saw IV and Saw V films and we got it with Saw VI, a film that brought back the true styling of the Saw franchise that had been lost in the previous films. Going into Saw 3D on the high from Saw VI I was expecting good things, creepy, terrifying, suspenseful, gore-tastic things but unfortunately it was not to be!

Saw 3D picks up where the last movie left off, with Hoffman continuing the Jigsaw Legacy while hunting down Jigsaws ex-wife, Jill. The main story line is intertwined this time around with Bobby, the guru behind the self-help group for Jigsaw survivors.
In classic Saw fashion, Bobby leads us through the gorey trap-filled story line, in an attempt to break up the ever deteriorating Jigsaw storyline.

To say that Saw 3D is completely useless is an exaggeration but surprisingly not that far from the actual truth!! Saw 3D seems to have been only made to satisfy our annual need for over-the-top and over-complicated bloodlust. Yes, the traps are more ridiculous, Yes, there is more blood than any other Saw film but that's about as good as it gets.

Lets break it down...
The 3D is average at best and feels forced in most places but probably the best part of the movie.
The story is very very predictable, which is a big problem for me because the Saw films always had a reputation for being complete mind-benders.
The Traps are too over-the-top, particulary the last one.
The level of blood and gore bordered on cheap B-Movie effects.
Note: Blood and Gore for the sake of it = Very Lame.

A positive for the film was the nostalgia of seeing Dr. Gordon again, even if he is not in the film for that long, and for this reason alone I would recommend going to see it.

It has become abundantly clear now that the studio obviously does not care about the story and as long as people are willing to spend the ca$h to see them, they will continue to make them. Which is a shame.

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RED (2010)

Director: Robert Schwentke

Cast: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Karl Urban,
John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Helen Mirran, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss

Date: October 2010

Plot: Former CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is forced out of retirement and must get his old team back together to find out who is trying to kill him and why.


RED - Trailer

Review: Based on the popular D.C. graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, RED has a relitively simple plot, Frank Moses is forced out of retirement after he is attacked in his house, he picks up his Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) en route to finding who attacked him and why. This proves more difficult than he first thought and must reunite with his former team one by one in an attempt to help him uncover the truth.

Packing a film like this with as many superstars as you can find can either go very right or very very wrong, thankfully RED manages to pull it off nicely. Everyone seems to put in a steller performance and with a good story backing it up RED is going be, in my opinion, a sleeper success!

Without exagerating too much I think Bruce Willis is getting better as he gets older! Willis manages to keep the same comedic timing from Cop Out to make his James Bond/Jason Bourne type character very likable in RED.
As for John Malkovich, all I can say is he is unbelievable! Funny, crazy, sinister, action hero... he does it all! I was even impressed with Helen Mirran, I'm not sure if it was the type of movie or the rest of the cast but I saw her in a new light and really enjoyed her performance.

I didn't have too many expectations going in to see this but I was hopeful that it would be an entertaining 2 hours and it was. A good aul fashioned comedy/action flick.

A must see!

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Despicable Me (2010)

Director: Pierre Coffin

Cast: Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Elsie Fisher, Julie Andrews

Date: October 2010

Plot: Super villain Gru has hatched his most diabolical plan ever, to steal the moon! But first he needs the help of 3 orphan girls to to get a shrink-ray from his new nemeses Vector.


Despicable Me - Trailer

Review: The tragic flaw with animation films over the last 15 years is that they are constantly being compared to Toy Story and Shrek.
While both of these are true classics, I feel it very unfair and quite boring to compare every film in the genre to these two! Could you imagine doing this in other Genre's? No!

So I believe that Despicable Me deserves to be judged on its own merits. In saying that, I thought that this was a fantastic film for both kids and the young at heart.
The movie really does have a bit of everything, there are laughs for everyone, from the fan of the slapstick to the subtle play on words, there is warmth and good intentions for those looking for a moral to the story and you would have to be made of ice not to fall in love with the cutest little girl, since Boo from Monsters Inc.

The storyline does follow the formula which makes it a bit predicable but there is enough in the movie to keep it fresh and new. The voice acting from all is done very well, at times it is sometimes a bit hard to understand Gru's (Steve Carell) accent but I don't believe it is enough to mark him down on it.

As a whole I thoroughly enjoyed the film. The jokes, story and animation worked well, I was even impressed by the 3D.
I believe that everyone left the cinema with a smile on their faces!

Definitely recommended to all.

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Fridge Door News

Welcome to another Marvel-ous edition of the Fridge Door News!!

On this weeks news we get to to don our tights, cape and mask as we look into this past weeks News, Rumours and Story's from the courageous and amazing world of Superheros!



The past 2 weeks have been rife with story's of the big budget action fests that are coming our way next year including Batman 3, Spiderman 4/ revisited Spiderman 1 and Superman: Man of Steel.

Read on my fellow Heroes and Heroines...

We kick things of with some big news on the new Spiderman reboot coming Summer of 2011. We broke the news, via Twitter, that Rhys Ifrans has signed on to play the villain in this much needed reboot. The rumour-mill lit up with suggestions of who he is going to play and it looks like it is going to be Doc Connors AKA The Lizard. Although this has yet to be confirmed it has not been denied either by Ifrans or the studio! Here's hoping!!


We move to Gotham City were the big news on the set of one of the most secretive movie, the untitled Batman 3, is the recent addition of Tom Hardy.
It is yet unknown who Hardy will play, Good guy or Villain but the storeys and theories have spread like wild fire... The best guesses are Killer Croc, Black Mask or The Riddler! Guess we will have to wait and see.


Debunked rumours: The two big rumours that have been laid to rest this week are that General Zod will NOT be in the new Superman movie, Zack Snyder himself put laid this one out to all the fanboys. The second is that Bradley Cooper will not be playing The Flash in the 2012 feature film. Cooper is quoted as saying "I've never heard anything about it ever in my life". This one particularly interests me as Ryan Reynolds was another fore runner to play the super fast hero... could he possibly play 3 super hero roles at once... Deadpool, Green Lantern and The Flash!!!

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